Hi, I’m Vera
I live and work in Copenhagen, Denmark and I have my office in the part of the city called Valby. Here I see clients both in person and online.
I am a certified sex- and relationship coach and am currently enrolled in a three year long professional training to become a trauma therapist. The program is called Somatic Experiencing. As part of this training I attend ongoing supervision sessions with Ariel Giarretto and Kavi Germin.
I have been working with international clients since 2020, and it is important to me to make it clear, that I offer sessions to non-Danish speaking folks as well.
Negative Sexual Experiences
The main focus of my therapeutic work in the last few years has been to support clients who experience eftervirkninger from what I call Negative Sexual Experiences.
A lot of people are carrying eftervirkninger from intimate experiences that to some degree has felt boundary crossing to the individual, and has affecte their life negatively after the situation is over.
I call it negative sexual experiences to allow a spectrum of nuance to occur when we talk about sexual trauma. There does not need to have been violoence or power involved for a sexual experience to get stuck in the body as a trauma.
A negative sexual experience can happen in a way that looks rather peaceful on the surface, and it can even happen with a partner that one is safe with in general. It is not the outer circumstances that define what the after effects are gonna be like. What determines whether or not the experience will impact the system negatively is the level of stress in the nervous system that does not get the chance to be expressed, released and integrated. The stress can, for example, come through an overwhelming experience of feeling unable to express a boundary, through feeling frozen and unable to act in a way that gets you out of the discomfort and back to a felt sense of safety in the intimate situation.
Somatic Experiencing®
Somatic Experiencing® is a methodology developed by the American psychologist and trauma researcher Peter Levine. The method is rooted in the notion that trauma is stored in the nervous system, in the physiology, and that it affects our psyche and body, if we do not get help to resolve and integrate it.
Peter Levine has studied how animals in the wild repeatedly can go through traumatizing experiences without loosing the ability to keep on thriving and living like they did before the event. How does a gazelle, for example, recover from the traumatic experience of being chased by a lion that wanted to eat it? He discovered that animals have an innate mechanism in their biology where they shake the build up stress that got mobilized through the event, out of their nervous system. Once the shaking is completed, the system has re-calibrated to a state where it understands that the threat is over, and it then returns to calmer rhythms.
Somatic Experiencing® is developed with the belief that humans too have an animal biology with an innate ability to release and integrate traumatic stress and return to a state of health and thriving.
Method
VITA™ coaching
The core values in VITA™ coaching is based upon the belief that our sexuality is a natural, powerful, beautiful and meaningful part of our being, and that the quality of our close and intimate relationships is part of creating a meaningful life.
The transformation in VITA™ coaching lies not in trying to change who/what we are, but in gently integrating physical and mental blockages, fear and stagnated beliefs about who we are, our bodies, sexuality and relationships.
The integration creates space for new sensory and relational experiences to occur.
You can book your first session by sending me and email to vera@verahannibal.com
Prices & practicalities
Prices from February 2024
1x personal session of 75 minutes: 450 DKK/€60/$65
While I am in the second year of the SE-training the session price is 450 DKK. I am in an ongoing learning process and am implementing new theory in my practice. I also draw upon experience from previous jobs as well as my coaching certification.
You are welcome in my office in Copenhagen and doing online sessions is also an option.
Find your way here
Værkstedvej 21
Valby, Copenhagen
Once you get here, just go through the green door and up the few stairs on your right hand side.
Got any questions?
Send them my way at vera@verahannibal.com
CV:
EDUCATION:
September 2023
Therapeutic Presence, Rhythm, and Connection
3-day workshop with Peter Levine, London, UK
March 2023-present
Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Training
3-year trauma therapeutic training, SOSI, London
February 2022- May 2022
In nursing training
Bornholms Sundheds- og Sygeplejeskole, Bornholm, Denmark
September 2020-November 2020
Creating Safer Space, Trauma awareness + trauma informed care training
Online training with Shelby Leigh
https://shelby-leigh.com/creating-safer-space
January 2019-June 2020
650 hour Sex and Relationship Coaching Certification
The VITA Institute
http://vitacoachingmethod.com/
August 2017-August 2018
Ethnology student
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
WORK EXPERIENCE:
October 2022-present
On-call nursing aid (care worker)
Hjemmehjælpen A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark
April 2020-present
Self-employed sex and relationship coach
Copenhagen, Denmark
May 2022-October 2022
Care worker
At Noerremoelle Nursing Home, Bornholm, Denmark
April 2019-March 2020
Substitute Teacher
At Soelvgade Skole (primary + middle school), Copenhagen, Denmark
October 2017-January 2019
Care worker for mentally and physically disabled people
At Bostedet Blomsterhusene, Gentofte, Denmark
January 2014-September 2014
Kindergarten teacher
At the forest kindergarten, Hoebjerg, Copenhagen, Denmark
February 2014-September 2014
Kindergarten teacher
At The Nursery and Kindergarten, Rosalie, Copenhagen, Denmark
August 2012-December 2012
Kindergarten teacher
At Nursery and kindergarten, Fryden, Copenhagen, Denmark
INTERNSHIPS:
April 2022-May 2022
Internship at the department of Oncology
At the Hospital of Bornholm, Bornholm, Denmark
January 2015-January 2016
Apprenticeship
At Astanga Yoga studio, Copenhagen, Denmark
March-July 2013
Project coordinator (intern) on a project to create safer conditions for young women in sex work in the Northern Uganda
For the NGO War Child Holland, Gulu, Uganda
VOLUNTEER WORK:
March 2015-December 2017
Mentor for young girls with severe eating disorders
For the National Association against Eating Disorders and Self Harm, Copenhagen, Denmark
December 2012-March 2013
Teacher + orphanage care worker
At St. Jude's Children's Home, Gulu, Uganda
OTHER:
September-December 2014
Personal research project on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda
Kigali, Rwanda